HOW DOES GOD SPEAK TO US?

1 Kings 19: 9-18

Last week I told of the death of my dear friend Viv – a decent lady who suffered a great deal in her sixty years of life. Once when she asked to stay at my home in Kandos while doing practice teaching at the nearby primary school, I offered to pick her up at her Penrith home and drive her to my place personally. But Viv liked to do things her way and she insisted on taking her own car. A few weeks later, on her return journey, she had a head-on collision and spent almost a year in hospital! To her this was just bad luck, but God had known what lay ahead for her and had offered Viv an escape opportunity through me, which she didn’t take. Unfortunately, the same thing happens on an eternal scale. God can see the disaster which lies ahead if we don’t heed His message at the opportune time! So often God speaks to us through His other servants and we ignore Him! Let’s look at the main ways He does speak to us, and be willing to listen to His voice!

In our reading today, we learned that although God is capable of doing spectacular things, like sending cyclones and earthquakes, He often chooses to speak to us in a “still, small voice” by just giving us a thought or a prompting or a sudden understanding, or even the solution to a problem! Sometimes we can only hear His voice where there is stillness and quietness around us and we tune into Him through prayer!

Mainly though, He speaks to us through the three S’s:  His Scriptures, His Son and His Spirit.

The Scriptures – (His written Word) Sometimes God speaks through Scripture to His people generally. E.g. Hebrews 10:25. “Let us not give up meeting together...but let us encourage one another!” But other times He gives us specific answers to our needs. On one occasion, while pasturing the church down in Berry, I felt that visiting people down there was a real waste of time! But when I arrived home, my Scripture reading for the day said, from 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain!”

A girl I once taught with had felt rejected right through her childhood because her parents had never really wanted her. But one day she read in Psalm 22 the words, “You made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast upon you!” With these words she realised that God had never rejected her, but had been at her side from the very moment she was born! So often like this, God speaks to us directly from His Word. We need to read the Scriptures regularly to see what He is saying to us personally!

The Son – (His living Word) Jesus has spoken to us all through His birth, His death and His resurrection. At His birth, He indicated that as God, He was willing to reach out to us by becoming one of us – a human being! Through His death, He demonstrated His great love for each of us by dying in our place, and through His resurrection, He has told us of His power over death! I once had a boss named Bob, who wasn’t a Christian, but he turned out to be the brother of my school French teacher, who was a Christian. When I told Bob that the whole Christian faith rested on the resurrection of Jesus, He couldn’t believe his ears!  He said with excitement, “That’s exactly what my brother has been saying to me all these years!” In other words, the Resurrection speaks to us with a message louder than thousands of Christians could ever convey!

Jesus speaks to us through His example. Back in the 1890’s a book was published with the title,  In His Steps – telling of a small American town where the townsfolk set out to ask themselves in each situation, “What would Jesus Do?” This became a catchcry throughout America, and even today you sometimes see people wearing the badge, “WWJD?” But Jesus speaks to us most by His presence with us. He says, “Come unto Me all who are over-burdened and I will give you rest – I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls!” For this reason, I urge people always to take Jesus with them – into the workplace, into exams and job interviews etc! Jesus will not only speak to us but will often speak through us on these occasions!

The Spirit – (His spoken Word) The Holy Spirit speaks to us generally of our sinfulness and our need for Jesus!  But the Spirit also speaks to/through us through 1) what we say, 2) what we pray and 3) what we display!

1.       Sometimes the Spirit gives us what we call a ‘word of knowledge’. For example, a mate of mine once told me that his father was undergoing tests for cancer. I said to him quite confidently, “Your father will be okay!” This message came to me through the Holy Spirit, and sure enough, his father after the tests was perfectly all right!

2.       I once advertised for a buyer for my first apartment in Kings Cross and no-one replied. I prayed that if I went into the street, the Lord would show me a suitable prospect. Sure enough I walked about one hundred metres from the building and there was a young Asian man with a newspaper, looking at real estate signs in the street. I said to him, “Are you looking to buy an apartment?”and he replied that he wasn’t but he was acting on behalf of a friend who was! I took him to my apartment and shortly afterwards the friend came along and agreed there and then to buy it!

3.       In the 1800’s a blind lady used to write rowdy drinking songs for use in American pubs. But when she became a Christian, the Holy Spirit led her to write hymns instead, and she wrote thousands of them – many of which are still sung throughout the world today. In fact last Tuesday, Annie and I sang one of these at a church service at my mother’s nursing home!

Let’s read the Scriptures, seek the presence of Jesus, and pray for the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, so that we know in our hearts what God is saying to us! And in Matthew 28:20, Jesus says, “Be assured that I am with you always – even to the end of the age!”